What are the ingredients of good fiction? Among them are surely compelling characters, a spirited prose style, and riveting scenes.
Scenes bring your reader in close. Good scenes enable your reader to experience firsthand your characters and their world. Dull, dry-as-dust scenes will surely dim down your fiction and kill reader interest.
But how do you avoid flat scenes? What fictional elements should you rely on? Should you go for short scenes or long ones? Should your scenes end with a bang?
We asked six well-published writers, both short story writers and novelists, for their take on these questions.
Handling the elements
Before we get into the makeup of a good scene, let’s first think about the various goals you as a fiction writer might have for a scene. Must you have a goal?
According to Connie Berry, author of the Edgar Award-nominated Kate Hamilton mysteries, “every scene in a novel should have a specific goal — more than simply moving the plot forward.” Naturally, this forward movement calls for conflict, which creates suspense and what Berry terms “emotional tension.”
What else can you accomplish in a scene? You can reveal character through dialogue, plant clues or red herrings, foreshadow later developments, and explore or develop themes, says Berry. “Before writing or revising a scene, write down your specific purposes. A goal-rich scene will keep the reader’s interest.”
Let’s focus, is what your character wants. Once you know that, “supply an action that moves them a tiny step toward their goal.” This is a process, says Sullivan, not a one-time thing: “By keeping their wants in the forefront of your mind (while also accepting that these wants change with the character growth), whether drafting or editing, you can decide if the scene is leading toward that final objective.”
